1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an airbag device for a front passenger seat whose airbag is deployable for catching a passenger (especially, his head) seated in the front passenger seat not only in the event of a frontal collision of a vehicle at which the passenger moves forward, but also in the event of an oblique collision of a vehicle at which the passenger moves diagonally forward in a left and right direction such as towards the driver's seat or towards an outboard direction.
2. Description of Related Art
As disclosed in JPH02-303951 A and JPH08-324373 A, by way of example, a known airbag device for a front passenger seat includes in its airbag, a main bag section which is inflatable in front of a passenger seated in the front passenger seat and an auxiliary bag section which is disposed at a region of the main bag section facing toward the driver's seat and deployable rearward. In this airbag, the rear face of the main bag section serves as a front-collision arresting plane for arresting the passenger moving forward at frontal collision of a vehicle while a side face of the auxiliary bag section facing toward the front-collision arresting plane serves as an oblique-collision arresting plane for catching the passenger moving forward at oblique collision (including also an offset collision not only an instance where the vehicle crashes while moving diagonally forward).
In the conventional airbag device for a front passenger seat, the airbag is stored in a storage area disposed in front of the front passenger seat and is deployable therefrom rearward when fed with an inflation gas. The auxiliary bag section with a certain volume is disposed on either left or right side of the rear face of the main bag section. With this configuration, when the airbag device is actuated and the auxiliary bag section is fed with an inflation gas, the airbag is likely to oscillate in a left and right direction, which is likely to cause a delay in airbag deployment in front of the front passenger seat.